Tuesday, November 15, 2011

US Defence Spending

Although planned cuts to defence spending (around $450 billion/10 years) are necessary in light of the US fiscal situation, the fall-back cuts that will occur if Congressional debt negotiations fail will be catastrophic. As Secretary Panetta noted in his letter, such cuts would pose a real burden on America's force posture capabilities. These cuts would weaken dramatically our ability to deploy on short notice to high effect around the world. Further, the cuts would damage our ability to apply decisive force on major operations. As a party that has heavily supported US military action over the past decade and continues to regard itself as the national security party, for Republicans to sacrifice these cuts at the altar of an anti-revenue ideology, would be a moral and strategic failure of major proportions.